Authorities focusing on overseas group

Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

Karen Gullo and John SolomonThe Associated Press

WASHINGTON - U.S and European authorities are zeroing in on a small group of men in England, Germany and the United Arab Emirates thought to have plotted the Sept. 11 attack and provided assistance to the hijackers, government officials said Friday.

Some of the Middle Eastern men are in custody, including an Algerian pilot that British prosecutors identified Friday as the primary instructor for some of the hijackers. The FBI found his name on a document in a car left by the hijackers at Dulles Airport outside Washington, one U.S. official said.

Other suspected plotters remain at large and are the subject of an FBI-led manhunt, the officials told The Associated Press. Several belong to various groups loosely associated with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida network.

Among the groups are various cells of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group that joined forces with bin Laden, the officials said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

"One should not focus on one individual, but focus one's attention on a series of networks across the world," FBI director Robert Mueller said Friday.

One of those sought is a man in the United Arab Emirates who was mailed a package from Mohamed Atta, the suspected leader of the hijacking teams, one official said. The package contained money and documents and was mailed by Atta a few days before he hijacked a plane in Boston and flew it into the World Trade Center.

The information about the origins of the hijacking plot emerged as the Justice Department announced more than 480 people have been arrested or detained in the probe.

Investigators also released a four-page handwritten document left behind by the hijackers that included instructions on how to carry out their attack and Islamic religious references.

"Try not to have others watch you while you're uttering your prayers. Don't be confused, and don't be nervous," the document advised. "Look cheerful and satisfied, because you're doing a job which is loved by God."

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the missive was a "shocking and disturbing view into the mindsets" of the attackers and "a stark reminder of how these hijackers grossly perverted the Islamic faith to justify their terroristic acts."

The document was found in Atta's suitcase, which didn't make it onto the Boston flight. Other copies were found in a vehicle belonging to another hijacker and at the Pennsylvania site where one of the jetliners crashed.

Evidence is growing that the plot was hatched, funded and assisted by several bin Laden sympathizers who gave instruction and support from Europe and the Middle East, officials told AP.

British authorities said Friday they had detained one such man. Lotfi Raissi, 27, an Algerian pilot, was "a lead instructor" of some of the hijackers who crashed an airliner into the Pentagon, prosecutors in London said.

Raissi made several trips to the United States this summer and flew with one of the suspected hijackers on June 23 from Las Vegas to Arizona.

Records show Raissi lived in Arizona in the late 1990s. Former employees at the Sawyer Aviation flight school in Phoenix remember Raissi using a flight simulator as recently as 1999 to instruct others, including at least one other person identified as a terrorist by the FBI.

Much of the evidence about collaborators has emerged as the agencies have meticulously reconstructed the hijackers' travels in the United States and Europe during their final months, and traced tens of thousands of dollars in financial transfers, officials said.

"Part of our investigation, quite obviously, is trying to determine the past histories of each of the hijackers, trace their time in the United States, but also attempt to identify where they were prior to their coming to the United States and track their movements through any number of countries overseas," Mueller said.

A law enforcement source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said as the plot becomes more clear from the evidence U.S. authorities are learning the terrorists changed tactics from prior attacks.

The evidence indicates high-level plotters and planners avoided traveling to the United States where they might raise suspicions and instead funded and instructed the eventual hijackers from Europe and the Middle East, the official said.

Contacts the hijackers made in their final months in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Czechoslovakia, and France have been one key in identifying potential backers, the officials said.

In other developments:

- Two men accused of fraudulently obtaining licenses to drive trucks hauling hazardous materials were arrested. Elmeliani Benmoumen, identified as a possible middleman in the scheme, also was ordered held in Pennsylvania. Benmoumen denies involvement.

- The FBI is investigating whether three Middle Eastern men visited a truck driving school the afternoon of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and demanded rushed training for hauling hazardous materials.

Albert Hanley III, the owner of CDL School Inc., said FBI agents visited his Lake Worth, Fla., school on Thursday and Friday after he reported the men.

- Two Michigan men indicted on charges of fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents entered innocent pleas Friday.

A federal grand jury indicted Ahmed Hannan, 33, and Karim Koubriti, 23, who were arrested during a search for a man on the FBI's watch list. A third man charged with fraud, Yousseff Hmimssa, was still at large.